Unemployment falls by 82,000

'After speeding like Bolt the Olympic jobs boost has slowed'

The rate of UK private sector job growth, having achieved a pace in the summer that Usain Bolt would have admired, has slowed considerably following the Olympics boost.

However, there were easily enough new private sector jobs to offset continued public sector job cuts, allowing a further fall in unemployment, and more of the new jobs in the latest quarter are full-time posts with permanent contracts.

So while the pace of job creation has slowed it looks as though underemployment, and thus the overall shortage of work, has fallen slightly.

Moreover, more full-time jobs for employees appear to be encouraging more self-employed people to seek employers rather than go it alone.